Prefazione a Politeismi antichi : le rappresentazioni degli dei nel mondo greco e romano : miti, immagini e testi

In three sections, this wolume tackles some of the central questions in the contemporary debate on Greek and Roman polytheism: how did Greeks and Romans begin to shape their gods and the images representing them? how is the world of the gods structured in Homer? The first part is devoted to Greece, with Homeric representation as a crucial point of reference for later poets and artists. To help us understand the pantheon, D. Bouvier explores how a Greek god may portray and create images of other gods. E. Pellizer offers some reflections on daimones, in order to analyse the consequences of other iconographies of Homeric origin. G. Lentini works on the political import of the portrayal of the gods in Homer. The second part concentrates on the Roman world, through a dialogue with the work done by M. Bettini: how did the Romans welcome the Greek gods and what were the consequences? How did the Greeks within the Roman world welcome the Roman gods? What happened when the gods of the Romans borrowed the name, the epiclesis, the forms and rituals of the Greek gods? Starting from the nexus between god's name and god's function, M. Perfigli analyzes the nature and characteristics of divine epiphanies. The third section of the book includes two contributions by E. Villari (one on Polytheism as a 'political' object and the other on the representations of the gods), which, returning to the Greek world, track current theoretical problems and highlight the differences with the Roman world, suggesting further reflections.